Yes in order to turn the item in to the correct person you need to use Forensics on it to identify the correct person, without using Forensics you wouldn't know the specific city/person. My Forensics skill was on a different character and only 70ish but that was enough to (after several attempts) get both the correct city and person each item had to be returned to. Then I just wrote down in Notepad which item went to whom and gave the items back to my character looking to gain Honesty. Since I wrote it all down, that's how I know it took me about 80 items (I say "about" because there were a few where I got frustrated trying to find the right person and ended up using the lost and found box in the correct city's bank)
More tips about finding the specific person:
- The people you are looking for are ALWAYS gold named, and either "_____ the Noble" or "_____ the Peasant"; NEVER shop keepers, other professions, etc.
- The person will almost always be inside a guard zone. This is useful to remember in cities like Moonglow.
- They are almost always outside, but since they walk around they can rarely end up inside a building.
- If you do this long enough you will get a feel for where the people tend to be in each city. Ultimately it is random but there are spots that are more likely than others.
- Yew is the worst city for finding a specific person. Just the worst. I would almost advocate just going straight for the lost and found box in Yew bank instead of wasting your time searching that city.
- Trinsic can be tricky; rarely the NPC can spawn on/in the border wall, or some other obscure nook or cranny; it is probably the second most difficult city, after Yew.
-Britain is huge, but the NPC's you are looking for tend to be either in East Brit (start looking in the park area in the middle) or the farm area across the bridge west of Brit bank west. I almost never found one in the northern half of West Brit (the castle, bardic college, etc.), so search there last.
- Remember that Jhelom has teleporters to 2 other islands; the person can be located on any of the three islands that make up Jhelom. The good news is the islands are all small. Search the main island first, then the southern island second, and the northern island last.
- In Moonglow, the NPC is almost always in the main city area, start with the hedge maze teleporters and work out from there. Remember the "main city area" includes a bit of space outside the border fence. That said, the person can rarely be in any of the guard zones on the island, which can get annoying.
- Skara Brae and New Magincia are the easiest towns. Rejoice when the item goes there.
And for finding the lost items in the first place:
- I only searched in Felucca, because the items are worth more points.
- it has been said elsewhere, but I had the best luck searching the coasts of islands (specifically Moonglow, Occlo, Buc's Den, and the island with Hythloth).
- searching the coast of the main continent did occasionally turn up items, but not worth it in the long run for time invested.
- same point with just running around the interior of the continent; yes you can find the lost items anywhere, but for whatever reason they seem to be more common on the coasts.
-that said, when searching coasts make sure you are zoomed out as far as possible, I did sometimes find items not exactly on the shore line, especially on the island with Hythloth.
Finally, like all the virtues, you DO eventually get a message saying you have reached the maximum value and can't gain any more. I wondered about this because you do not explicitly get a message saying "you have gained in Honesty" when turning in items to people. The maximum value is beyond the 80 items needed to reach Knight status, I stopped keeping an exact count but I would guess it was 10-20 more past achieving Knight.
REMEMBER, IF YOU BUY *ANYTHING* YOU LOSE HONESTY POINTS!
And now here's hoping I never have to think about this ever again
